Strata access and booking workflow

Why tower jobs go wrong

The work itself is rarely the problem; the arrangements around it are. In buildings around Burquitlam and Lougheed, a single job can depend on the owner, a tenant, a concierge, a property manager and a strata council, each with their own hours and rules.

According to the B.C. government's strata housing overview, every strata has bylaws, and owners and residents must follow those bylaws and rules as well as the provincial Act. For a contractor, that means each building can set its own requirements for move-ins, deliveries and trade visits. Owners often don't know them either, so the gap lands on you.

Common failure points:

• the customer assumed the elevator didn't need booking, or booked the wrong time
• the manager asks for proof of insurance or a work description and hasn't received it
• visitor parking is full and the loading zone has a time limit
• the fob or buzzer code given by the customer doesn't open the service entrance
• noisy work is limited to certain hours and nobody checked

Who this is for

Trades and service businesses doing regular work inside apartment and townhouse stratas: plumbers, electricians, painters, flooring installers, appliance and blind installers, cleaners, movers and handypeople. If more than a few of your jobs each month are in multi-unit buildings, the routine pays back quickly.

What's included

We build four things with your team, using tools you already have:

1. A pre-job question set. Six to ten questions your office asks every strata customer at booking: building name, manager contact, elevator booking rule, parking and loading, entry method, permitted work hours, paperwork required.
2. Message templates. Short, polite texts and emails to the customer and the manager, with placeholders such as [Building name], [Suite number] and [Date], so staff aren't writing from scratch.
3. A building record. One shared sheet or CRM field set where each building's answers live. The second visit to the same tower is then a lookup, not an investigation.
4. A day-before confirmation step. A fixed time and a fixed message confirming access, with a rule for what happens if the answer doesn't come back.

Our free strata job-day checklist is a stripped-down version you can start with today.

Timeline

Most businesses have the routine running within three to five weeks. The first week is spent reading your recent tower jobs and finding where they went wrong. Templates and the record follow, then a trial period on live jobs, then adjustments.

How we measure it

We count three things before and after: tower jobs that started late, tower jobs that were cancelled or rescheduled because of access, and office time spent arranging each one. Even a rough count from your calendar is enough. If cancellations drop from four a month to one, you can put a dollar figure on the difference with your own average ticket.

Mistakes we see often

• Leaving access to the customer. Customers mean well but often don't know their building's rules. Ask them, then confirm.
• Treating managers as obstacles. Managers who get clear, early information remember you. Managers who get surprises remember that too.
• Keeping building knowledge in one person's head. When that dispatcher is away, every tower job becomes a first visit again.
• No rule for silence. If access isn't confirmed by a set time the day before, decide in advance whether the job moves.

Related fixes

Access problems and missed calls often travel together, because the crew that's stuck in a lobby is also the crew not answering the phone. See call coverage during building jobs. For all four engagements, visit services, or contact us with a description of your last difficult building.